Today more and more steel or concrete post and beam buildings are being built. Construction techniques for building walls have been changing significantly including metal channel framing and stay-in-place insulated forms where concrete is installed within these forms.
Rigid insulation boards have been installed on metal channels for years Insulating walls have embedded channels within insulation blocks embedding the metal channels within the rigid insulation. Some insulated concrete forms (ICF's) have embedded plastic connectors within their rigid insulation blocks also separating the rigid foam from the plastic connectors.
There have been various attempts on creating a form mold to pour a concrete column or beam within a wall. Some patents uses metal channels to help reduce the pressure produced by using a rigid foam material to form concrete beam or columns. Another type of patents uses foam blocks with vertical and horizontal chambers to form concrete columns and beams. Another type of panel is a composite panel that uses fiber concrete boards the panel surfaces as well as interior bracing within the panel with rigid foam at the interior. Another type of panel is when the foam molds create a continuous chamber to pour a solid concrete wall.
The creation of a spacer blocks and spacer insulation walls allow various types of horizontal bracing channels and electrical chases or troughs to pass through the wall and concrete columns for additional flexibility and the various connectors to form the walls. In addition the structural insulating wall can be formed with a variety of closed cell rigid insulating materials like polystyrene, cellular light weight concrete or aerated autoclaved concrete all requiring various types of connectors.